it's about promoting the program for females, to help balance the gender divide in programming. In my batch, there was no scholarship yet, and we had no females. Same for batch[0]. batch[1] didn't have the scholarships and they had just one female. Since starting the scholarships, the program has been just under half female, which has been extremely beneficial to hackerschool culture.
The scholarships do help fix the gender divide, and honestly, I think that's very important, for both females AND males. I don't think it's acknowledged widely enough the relationship between gender diversity and happiness in a working environment. I would be very, very surprised if scholarly research didn't reveal that all-male or mostly-male workplaces lead to unhappy males. As a CE undergrad, I had almost no female classmates. A few years out of graduation, I've come to the conclusion that having no females in my program contributed to the severe depression that I experienced as an undergrad. Part of fixing that is making it clear that we want females to be a part of our community, and part of it is actually making sure that can happen. The scholarships are a good thing, even for the guys that don't qualify. As an alum, I support the scholarships for female applicants, and can testify to the positive impact they've had on our little community.
It's not just about happiness, but also productivity, diversity of thought, ideas and working styles, having a well-rounded team, and all that jazz. Though I'm sure happiness comes into it, too.
I'm female, and half the reason I'm tempted to apply is the scholarship. I find that a little disquieting, and I can't quite put my finger on why. Unfortunately, the scholarship is not enough for me to give up my (non-programming, but in technology) day job and move across the country, so it's something of a moot point. I'd love to do Hacker School, it's definitely a direction I'd really benefit from growing in, but the sort of person to whom the scholarship makes a substantial difference in applying... let's just say not every woman falls into that category.
